
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Trenton NJ, Governor Phil Murphy attempted to blame New Jersey decades of irresponsible spending and corruption on Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell ,going as far to claim New Jersey needs a whopping $20 billion even after the New Jersey legislator agree to allow the Murphy Administration a $10 Billion no questions asked.
In his July 24th press conference the Governor said, ” I cannot express enough my level of frustration with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell’s inability to put together a relief bill that has any meaningful or significant direct assistance to states. Crafting this piece of legislation may be – may just be another game of politics by him but for governors across the country of both parties, by the way – I saw Governor Sununu of New Hampshire came out strongly earlier today in favor of direct state aid. This is a matter of survival. Senator McConnell’s inability to ready a bill for a vote, pushing important decisions to the last minute, threatens the ability of states, including ours, to be able to safeguard for the long-term our public health and safety and education and infrastructure and other initiatives, not to mention that the unemployed and the millions of middle class families are still left twisting in McConnell’s political breeze. The House of Representatives has already done its job and sent an aid package to the Senate. That should be the basis for moving forward. This is a plan there – there is a plan there ready to be voted on. There doesn’t need to be an entirely new package put together with whatever scraps Mitch McConnell is finding in his office. We will continue to push for direct aid in New Jersey and every state that is shouldering the burden of this pandemic to come back stronger and more resilient. If only Senator McConnell shared our sense of the gravity of the situation.
And before I leave this, don’t fall for the myths, folks. If you hear hey, we’re going to loosen up your ability to spend the money that you already have, that money is either literally gone out of the door or it is allocated already to programs just like that lease – emergency lease program I just mentioned a few minutes ago. That money’s spoken for. We need another significant slug of direct federal cash assistance. And by the way, when I say significant, for New Jersey alone, it’s plus or minus, probably more plus, $20 billion. This is not a modest, at-the-edges, nice to have. This is a got-to-have to keep us solvent, to keep us delivering the services, to keep the frontline worker
And before I leave this, don’t fall for the myths, folks. If you hear hey, we’re going to loosen up your ability to spend the money that you already have, that money is either literally gone out of the door or it is allocated already to programs just like that lease – emergency lease program I just mentioned a few minutes ago. That money’s spoken for. We need another significant slug of direct federal cash assistance. And by the way, when I say significant, for New Jersey alone, it’s plus or minus, probably more plus, $20 billion. This is not a modest, at-the-edges, nice to have. This is a got-to-have to keep us solvent, to keep us delivering the services, to keep the frontline workers – firefighters, police, educators, EMS, healthcare workers, to keep them employed in our darkest hour of need as a state. Please, I’m pleading with Congress, both sides of the aisle, hear our call, not just from blue states, not just from the northeast but from states across the aisle and up and down the country. We need direct cash assistance, and it’s good for everybody.”
Its going to be difficult to convince Senators from states that have been fiscally responsible to bail out New Jerseys financial fuck up.
The Democrats who own NJ have bent over for the unions that support them.
All Senator McConnell has to do is post the salaries, medical benefits and pensions of the public employees of the state of NJ and municipalities and there will be ZERO sympathy.
Imagine a trying to convince the Senators from a state where police officers make 40k per year that NJ cops ‘that make 3 or 4 times that amount deserve sympathy.
Or a state where teachers dont get six figure salaries and cadillac health care plans.
Or where a Governor makes half of what a school superintendent makes.
Grossly overpaying public employees, giving them retirements after 25 years, then allowing them to collect pensions for more years than they worked at fixed benefit amounts= financial ruin.
NJ Democrats made this bed and the taxpayers are stuck sleeping in it.
Murphy did not lay off state employees during the past 4 months when he should have and basically gave them a paid vacation.
He wont get any sympathy from the rest of us.
It was fiscally irresponsible, but the state employee unions own him…his just another Democrat puppet like Corzine who will leave the state in worse fiscal condition than the last financial fuckup from Goldman Sachs who bought the Governors job.
They spent the original COVID money like it was free. Hey guys, get out there, figure out a way to spend this money. They had Paramus police officers for weeks patrolling an empty COVID testing site at BCC. Do you think they were there spending Paramus money? They finally put the orange cones away after a month of not using them.
Good luck with that. 60% of the annual state budget? That’s laughable. Why would Trump help such a liberal state just to bail out Murphy’s friends? No chance Trump wins NJ in 2020, it’s not a swing state.
Murphy’s union puppet masters see a boondoggle. But as anonymous above points out, McConnell just needs to post the list of what public sector retireees and workers get in terms of excessive wages, pension, healthcare and other benefits like “special retirements” after only 25 years of service. Murphy is nothing more than the stooge of the teachers, police and firefighters. Try diminishing their wages, pensions and benefits before going with your clown hat in hand to Washington.
laughable…big time financial executive worth $250mm+ can figure out how to manage the state’s budget….spend spend spend….then ask for more.
People you better hope he gets that money from the government. Because this is an emergency if he has to he can raise taxes to pay for this. The fog does not go to the people. And if he doesn’t get any money at all the states going to be in one big shit hole. Then you really better sell your house and move the hell out.
What liberals failed to understand is that there is no such things as “Federal” money, as such. That Federal money is all 50 States. So, to bail out these badly-run States like NJ, the money comes from the other 49 States, most of which have been fiscally sensible. I liken it to my long-departed brother, who lived his life on the edge. He would make fun of me because I was the sensible one. As he got old and found himself in desperate straits, he was come to me for money, which I reluctantly provided. I never got paid back. It eventually stopped. He died.
NJ is shortchanged every year by over $20 billion to funnel $$ to red states. NJ is merely asking for more of its own money. “Fiscally responsible “ states are overwhelmingly dependent on blue states revenue to DC
NJ is ‘short changed’ ONLY because we send lame do nothing Democrat Senators to washington who forget about us and ‘toe the party line’.
Try voting for republicans for a change. you have nothing to lose. Based upon the history of our stealth senator ‘spartacus booker’, like em cute and young in the DR ‘menendez, do nothing lautenberg, useless corzine, crooked torricelli… you reap what you sow. zip point shit.
Cant ask for money for a problem you created murphy. Shouldnt have kept small businesses closed for so long. You destroyed lives to save lives. Now alot of us will have to move because even with any federal aid you will raise taxes. You put all your hopes into federal money and on top of that the people you keep asking for money you paint them as villians. Money doesnt grow on trees we are already heading towards hyper inflation. You’ve already proven you cant manage a state budget. You spend money like water and refuse to make the neccessary cuts needed to balance the budget. You cant have your cake an eat it too. From the republican side we blame your leaders for their decisions for their irressponsible spending. You can scream, cry, threaten, complain but at the end of the day you’ll be held accountable for NJ’s suffering. Obviously democratic leadership has created more poverty like it does in every democratic run state. Learn how to manage your funds and stop playing victim you shut down NJ and then locked up, fined, & threaten to revoke license to any small business that tried to reopen to survive this pandemic. Those were your executive orders nobody elses. You will be held accountable. NJ needs new leadership, republican leadership but since that wont ever happen NJs economy will never get better because all democrats do is spend & raise taxes. Someone take murphys checkbook away already.
I pray that not one penny gets sent to New Jersey. Murphy did not take any steps whatsoever to stop the State’s hemorrhaging of money; in fact, he has done just the opposite: giving illegal immigrants free healthcare, free education, free everything, while giving the actual citizens of New Jersey nothing but the bills for such generosity. To pay for his $10 billion loan, he is already going to have to raise sales taxes and even create a NEW state property tax. It is finally time for spending cuts and they must be DEEP! our budgets must be pared down to the bare minimums, we have no right to be giving away free things when we have no money to pay for them.
How about praying 1 penny doesn’t go to bailing out red states. Those places live off of federal largesse